Apple hires Uber policy lead

Apple has hired Mike Orgill, Uber’s Asia-Pacific public policy and government relations chief, to work on its supply-chain overhaul in the region. (bloomberg.com) Orgill started at Apple this week, according to Bloomberg. Before Uber, he spent seven years at Airbnb and earlier worked at Google, according to the same report and his LinkedIn profile as described by Bloomberg. (bloomberg.com) Bloomberg reported that Apple, Uber and Orgill did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The hire follows an Apple reorganization last year that changed how government teams for Europe, India, China and other parts of Asia were managed. (bloomberg.com) Apple’s supply chain still runs heavily through Asia. In its fiscal 2025 annual report, Apple said a significant majority of its manufacturing is done in whole or in part by outsourcing partners located primarily in China mainland, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. (sec.gov) That footprint has been spreading beyond China for several years. Apple’s published supplier list for fiscal 2023 shows production sites in Vietnam and India for suppliers including AAC Acoustic, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Biel Crystal, BYD and Foxlink. (apple.com) Apple has also warned investors that trade barriers can disrupt that network. Its 2025 annual report says new United States tariffs announced beginning in the second quarter of 2025 applied to imports from China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and the European Union, among others. (marketscreener.com) That helps explain why a policy executive matters to a hardware company. Apple is balancing factory expansion, customs rules, local government ties and market access across India, Vietnam, Indonesia and China at the same time. (bloomberg.com)